We know that no man is a prophet in his own land. The welcome decision to award Natan Sharansky this year's Israel Prize lifetime achievement award comes more than a decade after he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and three decades after he was awarded the 1986 Congressional Gold Medal, making Sharansky the first Israeli and only the fourth non-American to be awarded both these prestigious American honors.
Sharansky's heroism and his willingness to stand up for the values of liberty, justice and human dignity, even in the face of the Soviet mechanism of oppression, have made him a role model for millions all over the world.
It took a different kind of courage for the former prisoner of Zion to enter Israeli politics. But there, too, Sharansky held fast to his principles and freedom of thought, such as when he resigned from Ariel Sharon's government in 2005 in protest over Israel's plan to disengage from the Gaza Strip. In June 2009, Sharansky was elected chairman of the Jewish Agency, and in about two months, he is slated to resign. As the state marks its 70th anniversary, he will accept the lifetime achievement award for his efforts to promote aliyah and immigrant absorption.
Sharansky admits he is excited about the prize, but mostly he appreciates the opportunity to talk about things often left behind in the frantic race of the Israeli news.
"We've all won a prize. All of us – new immigrants and native-born Israelis – got Israel as a prize. All the rest is a bonus," he says.
"However, since the announcement that I'm being awarded the Israel Prize, the discourse about important issues has moved into a higher gear – discourse about the importance of the fight to free Soviet Jews, about the fate of the Jewish people and their strength, about the meaning of our existence here."
Speaking with Sharansky, it is impossible to ignore the historical aspects of almost every sentence that comes out of his mouth. The man who made history lives it every moment of the day.
"The miracle of Pesach [Passover], of leaving bondage for freedom, is what is happening in our generation," is how he puts it.
The word "identity" comes up a lot in conversation with Sharansky.
"Life has no meaning without identity. After a few decades of trying to get humanity accustomed to the post-identity era, entire peoples are demanding their identities back. Most Jews care about the Jewish people continuing to exist in the future," he says.
About a decade ago, when discussion of identity was almost taboo in postmodern Western society, Sharansky spoke up in defense of national identities. With his book "Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy," he outlined the positive role identity plays. Now we see many populations across the world seeking national identities, something the Jewish people were wise enough never to lose.
In Sharansky's eyes, the Jewish people face two major challenges: ensuring Israel's continued Jewish existence and preventing Diaspora Jews from assimilating.
"When it comes to the first challenge, the Jews of the Diaspora can still help Israel, since it has no better ally than the Jews of the world. The Jews of the world need Israel's help with the second challenge. We could unite the entire people around these two goals, but it needs to be done wisely, not through coercion or orders," he says.
Q: Is there an antidote to assimilation?
"Faith and Zionism. If both of these exist for a given Jew, he is immune to assimilation, and apparently his descendants will also be immune for a generation or two. If only one of them exists, then we can work with that to prevent assimilation. But where there is neither faith nor Zionism, statistically it's unlikely that your grandchildren will be Jewish.
"We can view Reform [Jews] as a stage of assimilation. Or we can see them as a stage at which it is still possible to stop the phenomenon and work with the Jew to prevent assimilation. There is a battle between these two approaches."
According to Sharansky, about one-fifth of American Jews have already gone beyond this stage on their way to total assimilation, primarily through mixed marriages.
Statistics show that the likelihood of children born to Jews who marry out being raised as Jews is at most 30%; a generation later, there is almost no chance they will. On the other hand, the danger of disappearing is spurring the U.S. Jewish leadership into closer cooperation with Israel.
This is what happened with the Taglit-Birthright program, which sponsors tours of Israel, accompanied by IDF soldiers, for unaffiliated Jewish youth.
"The Taglit project is a tool the Reform Jews invented to keep their youth from assimilating, because every other way failed," Sharansky says.
"However, the core of American Jewry is much stronger and more Zionist now that it was 10 years ago. Once, only about a quarter of heads of U.S. Jewish organizations had any links to Israel. Now it's about 70%. That means our ties to American Jewry are much stronger. And they understand that they need us to stay Jewish."
'I'd be happy if everyone made aliyah'
In his nine years as head of the Jewish Agency, apparently the second-longest term in the history of the organization after David Ben-Gurion, Sharansky implemented many changes. The most significant one was a deep shift in ideas that affected every aspect of the organization's activity. Sharansky gave the agency one main mission: to strengthen Jewish identity in the Diaspora.
"When I got to the Jewish Agency, there was still an anachronistic atmosphere that we were the 'commissars of Zionism,' that we were supposed to give orders to the Jews of the world to make aliyah immediately. Today, 97% of aliyah is made as a free choice – not because of distress, but because of the feelings people have for Israel, because of their Jewish identity. So anyone who wants more aliyah has to invest in Jewish identity."
Sharansky may not have reinvented the wheel and may simply be pointing out that Jewish identity is a vital component to aliyah, but the change he instituted garnered considerable criticism. Some went so far as to say that Sharansky was turning a Zionist organization into a post-Zionist one and pulling back from the emphasis on aliyah. But there was some hypocrisy to this accusation, as it was directed at someone who was imprisoned in the Soviet gulag for his Zionist activity and desire to make aliyah.
Sharansky notes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supported his approach, and that in hindsight it is clear that he was right. Plans he conceived and expanded, such as the Masa project, do in fact strengthen the Jewish identities of the many who participate in them, and in some cases prompt them to make aliyah.
"I'd be happy if everyone made aliyah, but it's a process. Not only that, it's not right to bolster the sense that Israel is a shelter. If it's only a shelter, maybe Miami would be a better one? At the same time, it's not right to [campaign for aliyah] based on anti-Semitism in the Diaspora – for every anti-Semitic incident someone will decide to make aliyah, and there will be someone else who decides that he doesn't want to be Jewish anymore.
"My generation survived as Jews in the Soviet Union because of anti-Semitism. The authorities cut us off from everything Jewish. But they didn't cut us off from anti-Semitism, and that was what reminded us every day that we were Jews. But today, the way to the future is through preserving the Jewish identity."
Q: So Israel has a decisive role to play?
"Israel as a Jewish, democratic state does its part to make the world a better place, and that is what is saving the future of the entire Jewish people, even the ones who do not 'dwell in Zion.' People have a desire to belong and a desire to be free, and Israel exemplifies the realization of both these desires.
"In the history of the Jews, we were given both identity and freedom, and that happened in the Exodus. Our entire struggle centers around protecting them both and the effort to explain to Jewish youth in America that being a Jew is nothing to be ashamed of."
To Africa and back
Sharansky developed and broadened the Jewish Agency contingent of international envoys, especially representatives on university campuses, with the goal of bringing Israel and Zionism to those Jewish sectors in danger of assimilation. He says that is where the real challenge lies.
As someone who has kept tabs on the anti-Israel boycott movement since its inception, Sharansky remembers the horrible attacks on the Jewish state at the turn of the new millennium.
"The film 'Jenin, Jenin' [by Arab-Israeli actor and director Mohammed Bakri] came out then and dripped poison and influenced an entire young generation in the U.S. and Europe. Back then, I heard one Jewish youth say something awful – 'For me, as a liberal Jew, it would be better if Israel didn't exist, because then I wouldn't be responsible for all the bad things it does,' he said to me.
"Jewish organizations couldn't do a thing to stop this nasty wave. We managed to change the situation. On all the campuses where representatives of the Jewish Agency are present, only one decision in support of BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] has passed. We are managing to unite all the Jewish organizations that are active on campus and build an atmosphere of dialogue with the students, and then it turns out that all the justifications are on our side," he says.
Another decision by the Jewish Agency, which raised some eyebrows and even sparked vocal opposition, had to do with the idea of participating in non-Jewish humanitarian activity in Africa, Asia, and other areas of distress as part of the general idea of "making the world a better place."
Sharansky argues that the critics of this idea did not understand the reasoning behind it.
"I want to reach every Jew in the world and how him how good it is to have ties to your people. How do I do that? By meeting with him. There are Jews who cut themselves off from Jewish communities and rushed to go solve the world's miseries. Where will I meet them, if not in places like those in Africa, where they go to volunteer?
"Seventy-five percent of the volunteer community are Jewish, but those who fled all the Jewish frameworks. We are judging them, but I would rather going to meet them there, in Africa, and proving that their liberal, humanist values naturally tie in to Zionism. The alternative is to lose them."
The Jewish Agency has helped set up six aid centers in Africa, with nearly no budget, and it intends to reach an additional 50 locations. So as not to give up on the millions of Jews, the Jewish Agency is ready to travel anywhere.
Q: Can we say that the effort is bearing fruit?
"Yes. Because more Jews will make aliyah; there will be more Jews who don't make aliyah but who are more involved in Jewish communities and more willing to enlist to help Israel; there will be more Jews who might not do all that, but who will send their children to Jewish schools, because it's all part of the same process, the effort to strengthen the Jewish identity, which whoever succeeds me as head of the Jewish Agency will certainly do."
